Today I step away from something that has occupied my life for … over two decades now. I have no idea if I will ever return. It saved my life when I needed it to, and stepping away is almost as healthy. Paleontology (or for you Europeans, palaeontology) and the study of anatomy and biomechanics has been something I have wanted and explored but have had little in the ways of pushing myself through, given the vagaries of life. For half a decade I raised my sister and kept her safe, and for much of that time I explore my art as best I could; and all this while battling often crushing depressive lows and few highs.

To grace the pages of a publication of description of a nearly 2m pterosaur skull. So much about this skull…

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So much has been written about Nanotyrannus, a catch-up article is hardly necessary. Indeed, many have been written, some published. The history of the name, and of the specimen that underlies it, is well-known. It behooves us, instead, to look into recent history than the past, although of course, knowing what comes before is still important.

Many decades ago, tyrannosaurs were mysterious animals, with few complete skulls, and fewer skeletons to go about. Time skips forward and we have nearly complete skulls, for many taxa, and many complete skeletons for them. And moreover, we found various different growth stages. Animals typically change as they age; they are not born as perfect miniatures, as homonculi (or animiculi?) of their greater, older selves. But what degree of differences — there’s the problem. Continue reading →

Taxonomy — the art, or perhaps slightly artistic “science” by which people name things — is not an unfamiliar subject around this blog. So you will notice a few things should you click on that tag at the bottom. For the sake of this subject, let me stress I will not weigh in on politics any more than I have in the past, save to say: Taxonomy can be political, just as the people who do it are, and for much the same reason; and the sciences in which taxonomists operate are themselves political. This leaves the subject fragile, and open to incursion from non-purely scientific purposes. Be that as it may, taxonomy is wonderful, and it allows us access, in many ways cognitively, to anatomy, the maths underlying behavior and action, and the animals themselves.

So you will have noticed in recent years a resurgence in names old and new that had been otherwise relegated to the dustbins; and of the newer sent back in favor of the old. Brontosaurus is real. Nanotyrannus is real. Torosaurus is … not real. Syntarsus, one of the earliest depicted dinosaurs with feathers, is a beetle, and we gained Megapnosaurus (“big dead lizard”) instead. The cruelty of a nematode specialist made us regret the beautiful name of Ingenia for a bird-like dinosaur that has vastly deserved a more thorough description, and we’ve gained Ajancingenia instead. some of these subjects may be debated, and for different reasons. Species concepts; the role of ontogeny in discriminating specimens of species; the vagaries of not cross-checking with other taxonomists on your names; and many more other variances.

But the point of this is not to suggest some rule about how we should go about these things. While these names matter, they matter far less than the organisms they represent. More important, then, we should focus on the descriptive and sometimes even reproductive biology, research revealing the persistence of viable tissue long past the apparent destruction of it via fossilization, biomechanics, ontogenetic trends thereof, and their environment, their ecology and trophic relationships. These organisms are interesting, significant, important, and the names help encapsulate that; but at the same time less so than these organisms often seem when so much focus is spent on their names. (I’ve been guilty, too).

Step away from quibbling on subjects older than dirt and focus on the animals, and the name ultimately won’t really matter any more. And that means putting aside notions that the names you call something is a point worthy of debate itself.

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Not that long ago, a new fossil locality was discovered in Kulinda, Chita (Chininskaya Oblast), Russia, and it has the potential to confirm a recent hypothesis: that the filamentous integument of many theropods, found apparently in some ceratopsian dinosaurs, may be the base state from which all dinosaurs arose. Moreover, it would strengthen the argument that “dinofuzz” may be the same as pterosaur integument (“pterofuzz,” called pycnofibres). Thus, animals like lagerpetontids, silesaurids, even tiny, scaly Scleromochlus taylori, might be fuzzy. A new dinosaur from Kulinda represents a bold entry in the debate over dinosaur integument, a popular topic on this blog and one that evokes strong emotional reactions from many.

The KO, as Kulindadromeus zabaikalicus, as illustrated by Andrey Atuchin (2012). Used in promotion of the description by Godefroit et al. (2014).

Today marks the publication of a new paper describing spinosaurine material from the Kem Kem of Morocco, specifically a set of quadrate bones, the upper portion of the original tetrapod jaw joint. It’s freely available in PLoS ONE, and you can follow that link to read it now if you wish. As normal, I have something to say about this in the general context of things, which is largely parroting what others have said. So this is really not going to be much of a unique post. Continue reading →

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There’s no shortage of fossil archosaurs now named solely from teeth, or partial jaw bones but diagnosed or described primarily on teeth. Last I checked, this number was well over 150. Most recently, some of these used to be dinosaurs, but have subsequently been removed due tot he finding of more complete cranial bits, and associated postcranial skeletons that affirm they are most certainly not what they were once claimed to be. It’s not a story uncommon in scientific disciplines: Science is an iterative process, and often begins with small bits of data; other the course of study after study, new and more complete, information is added, and rarely removed, in order to gain a better understanding of the nature and context of the data. In this case, the partial remains of an animal from the Triassic of Morocco, deemed a dinosaur for 25 years, played a role in increasing the scientific knowledge of the origin of a much more important group of now-extinct sauropsidan “reptiles.” Both that group, and Azendohsaurus itself, would receive a facelift, its hair done, mani- and pedicure — a full makeover. Continue reading →

This past week I went to see The Good Dinosaur. As a fan of previous Pixar films, I was excited around the time of their last free-from-Disney film, Brave, to view this film, which they’d been developing for since before the takeover. So I was interested in seeing its direction after the takeover. I’d read the criticisms and the commentaries, but as a rule – especially since Dinsey basically spoiled the substance of the plot in Up with a commercial that left no doubts as to the presence and manner of “antagonist” – I avoid spoilers to Pixar films. It’s my little film vice. These movies are, in my opinion, among the best. I’d felt Pixar films have been declining since Disney began to edge itself into the creative process, and now that it’s taken over fully, I was concerned. Does The Good Dinosaur live up? Continue reading →